[Nfbf-l] Wii Device Teaches Visually Impaired to Walk with Canes

[Holly]

I want this program when it comes out!
Holly

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Lenora J. Marten <bluegolfshoes at aol.com>wrote:

>
>
> Interesting.....
> http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/health/118714/wii-device-teaches-visually-impaired-to-walk-with-canes/ click on the link for a two minute video
>
>
> Teaching the visually impaired how to use canes to get around is about to
> become hi-tech. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following
> report.
>
> Instructors at the Jewish Guild for the Blind on the Upper West Side have
> found a new use for Wii technology. They are testing out a new device called
> the "WiiCane" to see if it can help improve mobility training and use of the
> cane in young children.
> "One of the greatest challenges for an [orientation and mobility]
> instructor, which I am, is trying to teach a student to travel and walk
> outdoors in a safe line, in a straight line. And one of the greatest issues
> is to try to prevent the students from veering which means angling left, or
> right off their straight line," says Stuart Filan of the Jewish Guild for
> the Blind. "So the WiiCane is like a super idea. It's a great indoor
> training device to have our students get the feeling of what it feels like
> to veer and how, independently, in real time, to correct that situation."
> The training tool is being developed by the New York City-based design team
> Touch Graphics. It uses Wii motion-tracking technology to help students get
> the feel for not only walking in a straight line, but practice turns. A
> computer receives movement data and dings if the student remains on track or
> moves in the right direction.
> "Evidence shows that once learned, those skills are translatable into
> actual outdoor travel, and that's huge," says President Steven Landau of
> Touch Graphics. "Because then, people crossing the street won't veer into
> oncoming traffic and lots of other things in the course of their independent
> travel, where they need that ability to continue walking in a straight line
> without a lot of external information."
> The Wii Cane training program is not meant to replace traditional training
> methods, but is only a supplement. However, instructors at the Jewish Guild
> for the Blind say their young students respond to computers and they see
> responses in training in some of them that they haven't quite seen before.
> "Some of the students are really getting off of it," says Filan. "They keep
> talking about it, they can't wait to come back and to hold onto the cane,
> work the receivers and manipulate their bodies through space to get to see
> if they can walk the straight line."
> The WiiCane is also being developed for adults who are new cane users. It
> is expected to be available for commercial use by January 2011.
>
>
> Instructors at the Jewish Guild for the Blind on the Upper West Side have
> found a new use for Wii technology. They are testing out a new device called
> the "WiiCane" to see if it can help improve mobility training and use of the
> cane in young children.
> "One of the greatest challenges for an [orientation and mobility]
> instructor, which I am, is trying to teach a student to travel and walk
> outdoors in a safe line, in a straight line. And one of the greatest issues
> is to try to prevent the students from veering which means angling left, or
> right off their straight line," says Stuart Filan of the Jewish Guild for
> the Blind. "So the WiiCane is like a super idea. It's a great indoor
> training device to have our students get the feeling of what it feels like
> to veer and how, independently, in real time, to correct that situation."
> The training tool is being developed by the New York City-based design team
> Touch Graphics. It uses Wii motion-tracking technology to help students get
> the feel for not only walking in a straight line, but practice turns. A
> computer receives movement data and dings if the student remains on track or
> moves in the right direction.
> "Evidence shows that once learned, those skills are translatable into
> actual outdoor travel, and that's huge," says President Steven Landau of
> Touch Graphics. "Because then, people crossing the street won't veer into
> oncoming traffic and lots of other things in the course of their independent
> travel, where they need that ability to continue walking in a straight line
> without a lot of external information."
> The Wii Cane training program is not meant to replace traditional training
> methods, but is only a supplement. However, instructors at the Jewish Guild
> for the Blind say their young students respond to computers and they see
> responses in training in some of them that they haven't quite seen before.
> "Some of the students are really getting off of it," says Filan. "They keep
> talking about it, they can't wait to come back and to hold onto the cane,
> work the receivers and manipulate their bodies through space to get to see
> if they can walk the straight line."
> The WiiCane is also being developed for adults who are new cane users. It
> is expected to be available for commercial use by January 2011.
>
>
> Lenora
> bluegolfshoes at aol.com
>
>
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